This was the second iteration of the isotopes in archaeology lecture, which I ran last year in the same class, EOSC 523: Isotope Geology (grad class). One of the major benefits of this class is, due to its small size, the ability to organize individuals into groups based on their interests and levels of pre-existing knowledge. Since the lesson ran so well last year, we didn’t tweak the lesson plan much. However, the class fell much earlier in the schedule than last year, which led to the students having less of the ‘toolkit’ or background information that would help them in the high-order activity. As such, we modified some of the content delivery to be slightly less dependent on the scaffolding, and designed and implemented a second lecture on stable isotope systematics (the missing piece) and used the information given in the archaeology lecture to support the learning of a new geochemical ‘tool’.

This had a profound impact on the students; it gave them a real reason to learn this part of their toolkit, instead of them just learning something in case it can be eventually used. The archaeology lecture provided the motivation or bridged the stable isotopes frameworks to real-life life examples related to their own human history. It was really fun!

The archaeology lecture has a jigsaw component (a ‘nested’ jigsaw, as described in the reflection of the session from last year). We decided to build on that with the stable isotopes jigsaw to keep a format that the students were already familiar with. The jigsaw went as follows:

1. All students chose a coloured sticky note as they entered the room.
2. The each received a booklet of lecture slides that contained all of the content we needed to deliver about all of the different types of isotope fractionation (the ‘pieces’ for this jigsaw activity).
3. The students grouped themselves by their coloured stickies (wonder where I got that idea ;).
4. Each of the four groups were given a fractionation type, and all groups received the same set of questions to address related to their type of fractionation.
5. Each student worked on their own initially to find the answers to the questions in the booklet, and then to make a schematic drawing showing their process in action (this is super valuable when working with processes).
6. They then compared and contrasted their individual drawings within their group and compiled them into one (synthesis).
7. The group drawings were then hung up around the room, and we did a gallery walk.
8. Then, the authors of each drawing explained their responses to the questions and their drawing, answering any questions.

This was a really successful combination of lectures, as it provided the students with a break from the ‘toolkit’ with the archaeology lecture, gave them new information on an interesting affective topic (geochemistry of themselves, basically), which motivated them to learn the next part of the toolkit (stable isotopes). It was very successful, and I now see that the ‘bookend’ approach to designing lectures can also be valuable when planning a course, in that it’s good to break up the teaching style and type of content throughout the term to keep things fresh and students motivated!